


This World, Another, and One That Could Never Be

by FiveFootAngel



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: 3rd Person Limited POV, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, Catelyn Stark POV, Eventual Adultary, F/F, F/M, Fatherhood, Gen, Motherhood, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-29
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2017-12-13 07:35:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 15
Words: 18,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/821689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FiveFootAngel/pseuds/FiveFootAngel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four weeks ago she thought that she would be marrying Brandon. But Brandon was dead, killed by the Mad King four weeks past, and Eddard had married Ashara Dayne four moons ago in Dorne, when this nightmare was still a distant memory.</p><p>Benjen Stark was the only one she could have, the last of Lord Rickard’s brood, younger even than Lyanna whom all were fighting for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Wedding

_He’s still half boy_  Catelyn thought desperately, watching her betrothed move closer and closer as her father walked her down the aisle to where he waited. Four weeks ago she thought that she would be marrying Brandon. But Brandon was dead, killed by the Mad King four weeks past, and Eddard had married Ashara Dayne four moons ago in Dorne, when this nightmare was still a distant memory.

Benjen Stark was the only one she could have, the last of Lord Rickard’s brood, younger even than Lyanna whom all were fighting for. She had half laughed at the jape that it was. Her little sister marrying an old man, and her a green boy, standing beside each other at the altar of her father’s sept.

But she was a good daughter, so she performed her duty and said the words required of her. Benjen was shorter than both of his older brothers, and still possessed the leanness of a boy, but he was still as tall as her, so she did not feel too absurd when he stood on his toes just enough to tug loose the clasps on her cloak, and drape her with the new one.

The feast was nice enough, with dancing and revelry had by all, anxious to forget the war that awaited them in the morning. Her new husband seemed a bit preoccupied, but he was courteous to her, in his brusque Northern way, and when his men japed with him, he would answer back with a laugh or a retort.

It was the way that he still felt small under her arms when dancing that put her off to be honest. A boy of fourteen, who had never even been a squire. She could feel the lean muscle in his shoulders and arms, no doubt he would grow strong with time, but she could scarcely believe that she wasn’t holding her own little brother close to her and waltzing in the godswood to unheard music as they played.

Then, too soon to be believed, the guests called for a bedding, and she was lifted up onto the shoulder of a tall Winterfell man, and escorted from the hall. The men were bawdy and friendly, laughing and yelling to each other. 

Over her shoulder, she saw the young girls laughing as they lifted up Benjen. He grinned, laughed lightly.

The men groped at her clothes, and Cat bit back a yelp. She refused to let these people know that they were bothering her, not when she could be lady to some of them.

Her blue skirt was ripped and the man who was holding her up swore lightly, then her dress was removed entirely, leaving her in her shift. She toed off her own dancing slippers, then almost too fast for her to comprehend, the door to the chamber opened up and she was tipped inside. The room was still empty, so she sat down on the edge of the bed to wait.

Benjen Stark was tossed into the room not long after, naked as his nameday and, laughing, but his face went still when he saw her.

“My lord.” she greeted him quietly. He half flinched back though.

“Please call me Benjen. Or just Ben. I never thought that I would have to actually be any sort of lord, and now...” he swallowed hard and Catelyn realized that his pale Stark eyes looked centuries old, and as young as him, at the exact same time.

“Benjen then.” she nodded “Shall I take off my shift?”

Benjen nodded, then stopped “Wait...first...”

He crossed the room, and tugged at one of the pearl hair pins keeping her updo in place. Her hair sagged a little bit more, and Cat  could feel the weight of it tugging at her head.

He pulled out every last pin, and gazed on her hair dangling long down her back.

“You’re beautiful. I was nervous and I wanted to get so drunk at the feast, but I knew that if I did, I wouldn’t see you clearly...”

He took her by the hand gently and she rose obediently. He stood too and loosened the laces on her shift, pulling it slowly over her head.

“Gods.” he laughed gently “Just when I thought you couldn’t look any better.”

He still looked like a boy to her. His chest was as hairless as his face, and his limbs long and gangly, but she could feel the strength in his hands as they held her hips.

“May I kiss you, Catelyn?”

“You must do more than that.” she told him

He blushed a little then, but leaned forward all the same and pressed his lips to hers. She was surprised by the forcefulness behind his kiss, but responded in kind. His hair felt like Brandon’s had beneath her fingers, too thick to be called soft, but not coarse either.

She could feel an indescribable feeling building in the pit of her stomach as his hands fisted in her hair as well. She felt a pressure building against her thigh as well, and was taken aback, half frightened and half excited.

They did manage to fall onto the bed before being completely overcome.

She came back to herself afterwards, staring into his face, taking in his long straight nose and his pale eyes. 

He was half draped over her, one arm slung around her waist, legs tangled together, her right hip digging into the bottom of his stomach.

“That was brilliant.” he murmured a few seconds later when he found his breath again “You were brilliant.”

“Yes.” Catelyn agreed, other words fleeing her. He was small and gangly again, but she didn’t feel so unsettled. _He will grow, and if he must learn to be a man, then he will._


	2. Winterfell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been getting a lot of reviews talking about the plausibility of all this. And you're all right, this wouldn't happen. Hoster Tully would not marry his oldest daughter to a younger son, even though there is the chance that Ned will fall in battle or be captured and executed, just like his father and brother. 
> 
> My fanfiction premises are almost always, largely self-indulgent. I have come to terms with the fact that none of them are ever going to be very likely, but I have fun writing them. I hope that you all enjoy reading them.

They left for Winterfell less than a week later. They, being she and Benjen and a guard of half a dozen Winterfell knights and another half dozen Riverrun men. Jon Arryn and his men, and all of the Riverlands men had left the day after the wedding, with all of the other Northmen. They would meet up with Eddard Stark who had fled to the Stormlands with his bride after their stay in Dorne had turned sour with Lyanna’s abduction.

Lysa and Edmure both begged her to stay with them, but all of the Northmen, including her husband were firm. There must always be a Stark in Winterfell, and Benjen had been gone too long as it was.

They traveled by horseback, and planned their pace so that they may stay at inns or in the holdfasts of landed knights and lesser lords overnight to escape the worst of winter. It was over a fortnight before they reached the castle and she and Benjen sought pleasure with each other nearly every night, not always trying for a child, though they did that too. By the end of the journey, she understood her husband’s body much better, but gaining access to his mind was more frustrating. It wasn’t that he didn’t listen to her, for he did, but he seemed to only truly give anyone an answer when the matter was light, or purely logical. If the talk drifted anywhere of a philosophical or moral nature, or turned to glory and honor, he would clam up tightly and give monosyllabic responses, as if afraid to reveal any depth.

It made for dull travel through what felt to be a mild winter back in Riverrun. Here the snow drifts were chest deep in some places, and the wind seems to howl all around them as they ride throughout the day.

Benjen laughed when she brought it up “You should have seen it when I was a boy. It was much worse. We’re coming to spring now and it’s lessening.”

_You’re still a boy_ Catelyn thinks, but that is unkind of her. She had resolved to accept that this boy was her lord husband and stop wishing for another man.

The keep that they come to is not mostly all one castle like her father’s, with the moat dug all around it, but instead a large rambling set of buildings, closed around with a high wall. Benjen swings down from his horse just inside the gates, helps her down from her own.

“Welcome to your new home, my lady.” he tells her, and laughs happily as he greets all those come out to meet him, hugging the cooks and slapping a man who can only be the blacksmith on the shoulder, embracing a tall boy who can’t be much older than him, popping up all over the courtyard as he greets men, women, children and even dogs.

Catelyn wants to be angry with him for so very nearly ignoring her, but everyone he greets seems genuinely happy to see him, and him to see them. It is clear that he is younger brother to every man there, not just to his blood siblings. The greetings go on a little longer, until Benjen turns away from a small wrinkled woman sitting on the steps next to a young giant, and finds himself face to face with a thin man of middling height who raises his eyes at him.

“My lord. Perhaps you would like to bring your lady wife inside and show her to her chambers while you let the staff go prepare your supper?”

Benjen looked guilty then “You’re probably right, Vayon. You usually are.”

He made his way back to Catelyn. The horses had already been taken to the stables as Benjen had run around greeting all of Winterfell’s inhabitants, so Catelyn had stood there quietly as she watched her husband, but now she realized that all there had been watching her, She felt a flush growing but refused to be cowed. She was lady to the only living heir to Winterfell, even if Lord Eddard would more than likely get a son on his new Dornish wife.

Benjen hooked an arm through hers and led her into the keep “I am sorry for leaving you out in the courtyard alone. It is much warmer inside, my lady. Here,”

He took her hand in his, and pressed it against the stone wall of the keep. She almost shied back on instinct, expecting the cold of the wall against her already cold hands, but the wall was warm to the touch. She tugged off her glove, and felt it again, convinced that she was mistaken.

“But...how?”

“Winterfell rests of a wealth of natural hot pools. Our keep is warmer in winter than many farther south.”

“It’s wondrous.” Catelyn decreed

Benjen kept up the chatter about the castle at first, but then fell silent, though she had been paying attention and responding to his comments.

He led her up to the chambers that had been prepared for her. Her chest already awaited her there, at the foot of a bed covered with furs.

Benjen seemed reluctant to leave her there though. He dragged his fingers through her hair, and opened and closed his mouth. He leaned forward hesitantly, then rocked back on his heels, before leaning forward impulsively and kissing her lips soundly, as he had their first night together.

_And this is how it always is_ Catelyn though, half exasperated, half already fond. Her husband was charming and strong until he wanted to pleasure her, then as hesitant as the boy he was until they started, and finally found his confidence again in the first kiss.

But she could not let things go so far now. Not with the whole of Winterfell waiting on them, just below.

She kissed him back lightly, holding back from his strong hands, then broke it off gently. “I will see you at supper, my lord.”

“Catelyn...” he held her sides still in his gentle hands

“All of your people wait on you, my lord. And they have missed you.”

“Ben, Catelyn. Call me Ben.”

She squeezed his hand lightly “Ben, then. If would wish to call on me tonight, I would welcome it, but right now you have another duty.”

He nodded, letting his hands slide over her body lightly, before kissing her again, lightly, and leaving quickly.

 


	3. News

Her husband seemed more subdued than he ever had before as they settled into Winterfell. He did his best at managing everything of course, but after that one day of happy bliss with his people, he slumped, no longer seeming to find his previous goodnature.

He didn’t call on her as often as he had in their first fortnight together. She did her best to acquaint herself with the keep and the people who worked there. She quickly became friendly with the steward’s wife, and the castle Maester, but it was Old Nan who told her that she was with child.

She was taken aback at the certainness with which the old woman spoke, but Nan just laughed, and told her she had seen enough Stark children come into the world to know when one was on it’s way.

Sure enough, her own sickness a week later, and Maester Luwin confirmed the nurse’s prediction.

_Gods. The babe has fathered a babe._

She went to Benjen, in the Lord’s solar where he was managing his brother’s accounts.

“My lord.”

He looked up at her, his eyes reproving and Catelyn had to bite back a smile “Benjen. I have news for you.”

He half smiled “Better news than that which I’ll find in these bloody accounts, I hope?”

“I do hope so.” she crossed the room to stand beside him, and placed a hand on his arm “I am with child.”

His eyes opened wide, resting on her middle, then going back to her face, then back to her middle.

“Gods.” he muttered

He tentatively placed a hand on her middle, then removed it and stood.

“Gods.” he repeated himself

“I’d hoped you might be pleased.” Catelyn told him, fully intending the dry tone of voice.

“I...” he trailed off, and slumped down before his brother’s desk “I...” his voice hitched, and he made an awful face, rubbing at his eyes

He’s crying. She felt lost. If he was any other boy of fourteen, she would have reproof or comfort to provide, but he was her husband.

Then his shoulders shook and she forgot any such compunctions, and knelt down beside him, stroking his shoulder and his hair.

“What’s the matter?”

He pressed a fist to his mouth and closed his eyes, and struggled to stop crying.

She sighed, and stroked his shoulder again, pulling his head against her. He tried to struggle away, but she whispered soothingly in his ear until he collapsed against her, and let his tears be spent against her bosom.

When he pulled back away from her, quiet now, she looked him in the eye “What is it that has given you such grief my lord? Do not tell me that those were tears of joy.”

“I cannot be a father.” he told her, voice full of anguish. “I cannot even be a good brother. It’s my fau...”

He glanced away, a child who had almost revealed a secret.

“Ben?”

He looked back at her, and closed his eyes “It’s my fault that Brandon and Father are dead!”

“What?” Catelyn cupped his cheek with one hand “Where did you get that notion?”

“It’s true.” he said miserably “Lya came to me and told me that she loved Rhaegar. I told her she was mad, but she made me promise to help her and keep her secret. And I...I love my sister, so I...”

He closed his eyes and looked down “He came North, and stayed hidden in the woods. Lya had me help her out the woods to be with him. The first time I led her out and she came home, happy. The second time she was worried, but she wanted to see him again. So I led her out, but hid in the woods, to watch. And Rhaegar talked to her and made her cry. I was going to go confront him, then I realized that I could never stand up against him. He would kill me. Or just laugh. I was going to go for help, but then he helped Lyanna onto his horse, and mounted behind her. And they left.”

He let out a long shuddering breath and Catelyn squeezed his hand. He looked up at her then. “She left with him willingly. I know that now. But I was so scared then...I ran through Winterfell raising the alarm. Father refused to believe it until we had all searched for her and found her gone throughout the whole castle and the woods and the town. By then it was too late and they were gone. Brandon didn’t even question how I knew it was Rhaegar. I know that Father suspected that I must have had some idea, but he never...”

Benjen choked on tears again, stopping the flow of words that had burst from him. “He was willing to pretend. He just wanted her back.” his voice broke and he leaned into her again “I want them all back.”

Catelyn just held him and rocked gently back and forth, crooning softly into his ear.

He managed to calm himself and sit up. Catelyn politely looked away while he composed himself, remembering the pride that Petyr and Edmure both had about such things. When he was done, she took his hands in hers and looked him in the eye “It was not your fault. No one but Rhaegar and Lyanna can be blamed for Lyanna’s absence, and no one but the Mad King can be blamed for your father and Brandon’s deaths. We are all responsible for our own actions, and all you did was aid your sister in the actions she would have taken anyways if she was serious enough to leave with him.”

Benjen looked down. Catelyn gripped his hand tighter, and forced him to look up at her “Say it. Lyanna and Rhaegar left. The Mad King killed my father and my brother. None of it was my fault.”

Benjen closed his eyes, and then opened them. “Rhaegar and Lyanna left.” his voice broke a little, and he sat up straighter “The Mad King killed my father and my brother.” he nodded, and continued on, his voice stronger “None of it was my fault.”

He wiped his eyes again with the backs of his hands, and hesitantly placed a hand on Catelyn’s middle. She smiled, and covered the hand with her own.

“You will be a great father.” She promised him “I see it in the way that you love your people.”

Benjen smiled back at her, hesitantly, still looking fragile the way that everyone does when they have finished crying their eyes out.

He leaned forward and kissed her, firmly, but not in the hungry way that he had on her wedding night. She leaned back into the kiss, squeezing his hand as she did. When Benjen broke it off, he leaned his head against her own, and she felt for the first time, that distance between them beginning to give way.


	4. Robb and More News

After he made his confession to her, Benjen seemed happier and more eager. He laughed more easily, and slowly started opening up to her more. He told her about his childhood, and all of the trouble that he and Lyanna got into around the holdfast.

“We were left free to run about like wildlings.” he grinned at her, as he led her through the godswood, letting her lean on his arm as he led them around the slick patches of ice “Brandon was always with Father, and Ned was at the Eyrie much of the time. Old Nan tried to keep us in line, but we were too fast for her.”

“I won’t have our son acting like a wildling.” she informed him, half teasing “I expect him to be a proper young lordling.”

“Ugh. How boring for the poor little pup.”

But he laughed with his words, and rested a hand against her middle. It had rounded to be more than noticeable, but not so much in the heavy winter gowns that she wore out in the snow. “I’m sorry, son. Your mother is an unrepentant Southroner.”

Catelyn laughed herself, pressing the hand not entwined with Benjen’s lightly to her middle.

When they returned to the keep, Maester Luwin was awaiting them, to remind them that war waged on outside of their home.

 

* * *

 

Catelyn felt enormous, eight moons into her pregnancy, and too weighted down to do more than waddle. Benjen teased her about it, but she had also never seen him more attendant to her, always checking in on her, to ask her if she needed anything, or adjusting the pillows behind her back, or coming up to see if she was bored and wanted him to read to her. He spent most nights lying curled around her, head angled down towards her stomach.

The rest of Winterfell was just as amused to see their wild child brought about to care for this proper young lady he had brought back from the South.

She had received letters of congratulations from her father and her uncle, and a short line from Edmure at the bottom of the letter from her father, asking her when she was coming home to see him.

Benjen entered her solar, where she sat going over the household accounts with Vayon Poole, and sat down beside her, kissing her jawbone and settling his chin over her shoulder to peer down at the accounts himself.

“Spring is coming.” he told them

“Your ancestors would despair of you, Benjen Stark.” Poole tells him gravely, and all smile

“Mikken says that you can feel the last of the cold all gathering in the air, fighting back against the change of seasons, but it will all be for naught.”

“I’m not sure that the Maester would find that reasoning accurate.” Catelyn laughed “All the same, it will not be unwelcome at all if that is true.”

She can feel his smile pressing against the side of her face, and lets him take her hand in his.

 

* * *

 

“Oh dear.” Benjen responds when she shakes him awake and tells him that she is sure the babe is coming.

“Go for the Maester!” she retorted, shaking his shoulder “Don’t just lie there and say ‘Oh dear.’”

“Right.” Benjen gets to his feet and stumbles from the room, looking dazed.

The pain that she endures, while the Maester delivers the babe to the world, and Benjen alternates between holding her hand and pacing the room is unlike anything she has ever experienced. Still, she scarcely remembers it when she has the babe tucked against her, and is looking at his gorgeous red and screaming face. Benjen nudged her over and tucked a bent leg behind her so that he can look over her shoulder down on the babe from the same view that she had.

“Gods Cat. We made that.”

“Cat?” she asks him, glancing up at him

He flushes “If it displeases you-

“No. It’s nice. My father calls me Cat. I’ve missed it.”

Benjen nodded, peering over her shoulder more.

“He’s got the handsome-Stark nose. Father and Brandon and Lyanna all had it. Ned and I don’t. The rest of him must be all Tully though.”

“Aye.” Cat nodded, taking in the sight of her son “Edmure had that light hair when he was a babe. It darkened up as he got older, got all reddish like mine.

“What should we call him?” Edmure asks, slipping his arms around Cat and pulling her back against his chest.

 _He’s gotten so much taller_. Catelyn thinks, settling against him

“We could name him for your father, or your brother.”

Benjen stiffens “No. Not...not now. Not yet.”

“Alright.” Catelyn agrees, deciding not to press the matter in this regard. If his son’s name brought him pain everyday, it could only harm their relationship.

“We could steal a name that Ned would use.” Benjen suggests “That would annoy him and please him all at once.”

Catelyn bit her lips together in an effort not to smile.

“What name would that be, Ben?”

“Perhaps Jon, after his foster-father, or something Dornish for his ladywife. Or Robert for his best friend.”

“Robb.” Catelyn murmurs looking down on her son “Yes. Robb. Not Robert.”

She can feel Benjen’s smile spread across the side of her forehead as he looks down on their boy “Aye. That’s who he is. Robb.”

 

* * *

 

Benjen was in the solar, talking to Robb when Maester Luwin came in with the letter from Ned.

“Beyond that wall, just outside the gate is the wolf’s wood. It’s deep and wild, but I dare say that you’ll be out there with cousins and siblings as soon as you are old enough to plan mischief. Your poor Aunt Lyanna had to wait until I was old enough to really explore it. Because your Uncle Brandon had seen it so many times already, and your Uncle Ned is unrepentantly boring.”

Robb gazed up at his father with unfocused eyes and then yawned.

“None of that now.” Benjen warned “I’m not the boring one, I’ll have you know.”

“No, I would never call you boring, my lord.” Luwin’s quiet voice mused from the door of the solar.

“Maester!” Benjen turned around quickly, his face filling with color as he turned and saw Catelyn and the Maester standing in the doorway to the solar.

Catelyn went and took Robb from him, resting the babe’s head against her chest, and stroking down the soft hair on his forehead.

“A raven from the capital my lord. From your brother.”

It was a short one, just a few lines in a well rounded even hand, a bit smudged by rush.

_Kingslanding taken. Robert to be crowned. Riding to Dorne to find Lyanna._

Ben had laughed happily at that, and kissed Cat soundly on the mouth.

“They’ll both be coming home. It will all be better. Not the way it was, but better than now. And you’ll love Lyanna, I know you will. She’s not a proper lady like you, but she’s strong and kind.”

Catelyn smiled on him then, and kissed his cheek. Benjen took Robb back in his arms and as the Maester left, he took him back to the large window. “You can’t see everything I’m telling you about, the North is just too big. But way, way north, there’s the Wall. It’s seven hundred feet tall, built purely of ice. Your ancestor, Brandon the Builder had the Wall built to keep out monsters and wildlings. Your uncle Brandon was named for him. There have been an awful lot of Brandons in this house.”

Catelyn smiled to herself as she left the room behind Maester Luwin.


	5. Bad News

The thing is - Cat enjoys being the Lady of Winterfell. She’s good at managing the accounts and directing the staff. And she likes them all, the brisk no-nonsense northerners, and she likes the warmth of the holdfast and watching her cheerful boyish husband grow into fatherhood. She’s not sure how she’ll like it when it’s not just the three of them there, as a little family. When Eddard Stark - an ever looming presence, revered by the staff and held in affectionate honor by Benjen - returns with his Dornish wife, what will become of them?

No one is certain of their opinion of Ashara Dayne. She caught Gage, the head cook muttering over how he won’t have anyone snubbing his cooking, and a few of the stable boys wondering aloud whether Lord Eddard will have a true “Dornish marriage”. She doesn’t know what that means, and she’s fairly sure that the stable boys don’t really know either. Both times she manages to quell the gossip with a cleared throat and a single look. If only it were so easy to sort out her own feelings.

Of Lyanna, she doesn’t worry very much. All of the castle staff adore her, and she seemed have been the castle lady after her mother died, but she will marry Robert Baratheon at the end of it all, and only visit the castle from time to time. If Robert will not have her, she will return of course, but it seems to Catelyn to be the height of absurdity to start a war over a woman and then not have her, simply because she has been deflowered. Especially if you knew she was ruined when you started the war.

Lord Eddard’s next letter comes when she and Robb have both laid down for a nap, by her reckoning afterwards, it is a good hour after Benjen reads it before she starts searching for him.

He fled to the godswood, like any good northman in distress, and that is where she found him, leaning against a tall tree that had clearly just been attacked by the sword lying beside him. He sat facing the heart tree, but his face was buried in his sleeve.

“Ben” she called gently, and he started as he turned to face her.

“My lady.” he murmured, rubbing at his red eyes tiredly, and holding out a hand to her. She accepts it, and sits beside him, rubbing gentle circles on the hand he has given her with her thumb.

“The Maester said that you received news with your brother’s seal, but written in a strange hand.”

He half choked, reaching into his shirt and bringing forth the letter, a little worse for wear now than it had probably been when received it. Catelyn smoothed it over her knee, and read the words for herself.

_Goodbrother,_

_First, I must let you know that no harm has come to your brother. He is merely over tired and distressed, so I took it upon myself to write this letter to you. And as much as those words must gladden you, my next will surely be the opposite. Your sister perished of a fever, in the Tower of Joy. Your brother cut down any that stood in his way, save mine own brother, for I threw myself between the pair and neither would hurt me. So Ned held Lyanna in her last minutes, and then pulled down the tower to build cairns for the dead. Only Lyanna he brought back, to lay to rest at Winterfell. Your brother and I will make all haste back to Winterfell to be with you and your bride, but we must visit my own home and make certain arrangements._

_Ashara Stark_

Catelyn looked at Benjen’s distress again and clutched his hand tighter.

“You know that this isn’t your fault either.”

He nodded shakily, not about to cry again, but not quite whole either. So she just leaned against him, and him against her. He lets out a little laugh when he has collected himself more.

“This is becoming something of a bad habit.” he quips bitterly, his hands shaking a little against hers. He pulls away one hand and brushes back his dark hair.

“How is it that you stay so strong when I am falling all to pieces?” he asks her, and she smiles then.

“Because being there for you is what gives me strength.”

He says nothing, but loops an arm around her to embrace her.


	6. The Lord and Lady of Winterfell

The Lord and Lady of Winterfell enter through the biggest, grandest gate, with a party that Cat knows is smaller than the one that set out to follow their lord to battle.

They do not stop where Benjen and Catelyn wait, but continue on past them. Benjen takes her hand and leads her to join the procession. Cat wonders at it, until she sees that just behind them are three large boxes, borne on horses led by silent sisters. 

The procession dismounts and continues down into the crypts, and all Catelyn can think is how horrible it must be for Ashara that this is the first place in her home that she sees. Benjen follows Ned forward to the first of the spaces left empty, but Ashara stays back, so Catelyn stays with her, standing beside this dark haired woman who is her liege lady, as they watch their husbands wrest with cold white boxes. 

She never asks Benjen about those moments that he stands beside his brother, as they quietly inter their family’s bones to sit here forever, guarded by swords sitting across their palms.

When they leave the tombs, Ashara steps to the side a moment and returns with a babe, smaller than Robb, dark haired and pale. Catelyn thinks he is all Stark, and is envious that Ashara has had a northern babe for a second, before seeing her goodsister again in clearer light. Ashara still possess a maiden’s slender form, a form that Cat has yet to regain after bearing Robb. Then all she feels is sympathy, and incredulity. Ashara is a better woman than her (or a more foolish one) if she can smile so on her husband’s bastard. Perhaps it is because she is Dornish.

“Brandon’s son” Eddard explains, and yes, there are those who will believe it, though Brandon had to have died near two moon’s turn before this babe was even a quickening. Still, it’s not her business. Not yet at any rate.

Ashara greets her with warmth, and she realizes with a pang how much she has missed being around women her own age and station, who understood her life. She returned the kiss that her goodsister paid her, and smiled on the little bastard held in Ashara’s arms, whoever his parents really were.

Lord Stark is taller than Benjen, though not by much. He is broader, bearded and more plain faced, though even Ben isn’t as handsome as Brandon had been. Few are. Few were.

He greeted her with courtesy, but his eyes were focused on his brother. When they reached each other, they stared for several minutes, before Lord Eddard grasped his brother’s arm and said simply “You’ve grown.”

Benjen laughed a little “Oh yes. I had a lot of control over that.”

Eddard just raises one eyebrow and Benjen grins at him, falling against him in an embrace.

 

* * *

 

The two of them head off the the lord’s solar after that, and Catelyn leads Ashara to the nursery. Her goodsister coos over Robb, while the little bastard’s wet nurse and Old Nan cluck over how the hurried travel has mussed even the babe.

“His name is Jon.” Ashara tells her, and after he has been washed, he is laid beside Robb in the crib. Catelyn wants to snatch her son away and run fast, until reason catches up with her. Even in Dorne, bastards who try and steal family titles are not tolerated. And she is not the lady of Winterfell, and as soon as Ashara and Eddard have a trueborn son, Robb will be even further removed from the line of inheritance. Not the bastard’s first target if he does turn treacherous.

Then Robb reaches out an inquisitive hand and softly touches the smaller babe’s head. And really, in that moment, she knows she has lost before she even started to fight.


	7. Two More Years in the North

 

It is when the Stark bannermen come to call that they really get to know the North, her and Ashara. They meet Lord Karstark who rumbles about how the next time he will not come to war during winter, and Lord Glover who chastises him, and Lord Umber, called the Greatjon who boasts loudly and lustily that the whole war would have been lost if not for Lord Stark’s tactics. Lady Maege, (who is Lord Mormont’s aunt), calls them all fools and braggarts, and tells them to sit down, before telling Lord Stark that she would have joined him on the battlefield if not for the birth of her third daughter, Jorella, just before the raven declaring war reached Bear Island.

Ashara greets them all gracefully, and they do the same to her. A few of the prouder lords don’t bother to greet Catelyn or Benjen, but most of them do. She can feel Ben tense beside her when they are greeted by Lord Bolton.

“Lord Benjen.” He greets him quietly “This must be your lady wife.”

“Lord Bolton. Yes, this is Lady Catelyn.”

“It is good to meet you my lord.”

“And a pleasure to meet you, my lady.” he nods “I hope that you enjoy the North. Since it is your home now. You are one of us, my lady, for better or for worse.”

“Surely for better, my lord.” she tells him, though she has not always been sure herself.

“To be sure.” he assures her, his eyes saying the exact opposite. He makes his excuses and passes on. She notices now how tightly Benjen had been clutching her hand, and her his.

“He has that effect on everyone my lady.” he breathes in her ear, as he brushes back a piece of her hair. She nods. Then Benjen glances back to the line of lords and ladies and laughs aloud “Domeric! Come here and meet my lady wife!”

A young man, not much older than Benjen grins and comes forward “I saw you just met father, and I was coming to let you know that not all at the Dreadfort are so grim.”

“Despite it’s rather ominous name.” Benjen drawls out. Domeric smiles a little, his eyes bright and laughing.

“Don’t pay too much heed to the stories you hear of the North, my lady.” Domeric tells her “They all happened a very long time ago, and scarcely any of them are accurate today.”

“That isn’t as comforting as it probably was meant to be.” Cat tells him, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“No” he shakes his head “But it’s true.”

Benjen grinned and rolled his eyes “He likes to be just as unsettling as his father.” Benjen explained “But in a different way.”

She glanced up at Ashara, and her goodsister gave her a sympathetic smile.

 

* * *

 

After all of the guests went home, Benjen gave up all pretenses of sleeping in his own room. Catelyn knew that she could always send him away if she wanted to be alone, but more often than not she did not. One night when the two of them were lying together, talking through the day, Benjen mentioned Jon.

“I love Ashara dearly, and Jon is a sweet babe, but I do not see how she can cradle her husband’s bastard so sweetly.”

“Jon is Brandon’s son.” Benjen protested.

Catelyn laughed “Don’t play the innocent Ben. Brandon died two moons before the babe was a quickening in his mother’s womb. Most will believe the lie of course, especially if they don’t see him until he is older, but Jon is much too small to be Brandon’s babe.”

Benjen looked thoughtful, and started musing outloud “And he can’t be Ned and Ashara’s bastard for the same reasons. But Ashara won’t let Ned say that the babe is his bastard, even if that’s what most people believe.”

“What most people believe? You mean it isn’t the truth?”

Benjen grinned lightly “If you knew my brother for any length of time before this happened, you’d know why I’m laughing about this.”

“Well tell me then. Since you clearly know. Jon can’t be Brandon’s son, or your father’s and you say that he is not Eddard’s. You have been here in the North with me the whole time, so unless you had your brother retrieve your bastard from Torren’s Square on his way North...”

She stares at him then “I cannot puzzle it out. They boy is clearly Stark blood.”

“Stark blood aye. But not sired by a Stark.”

It took her a moment to see it “Lyanna.” she breathed.

“Aye, Lyanna and Rheagar. Aemon Blackfye, he would have been. But if Robert knew, he would not suffer him to live.”

She sighed against Benjen’s skin, closing her eyes and pushing her head against his chest “I like Jon Snow better.”

“I do too.” Benjen agreed “Ned didn’t think I should tell you. But in the end he had to admit that I knew you better than he did. And his wife knew, because she was there with him at the tower.”

“While we were here.” Catelyn murmured “Ben...”

“Mmmm?”

“Promise me, that if you ever have to go to war - that you’ll do your duty, but you won’t try to be a hero. Alright? Because eight men rode to the Tower of Joy, but only your brother and Howland Reed returned. So promise me that you won’t go off, and do things that will likely get you killed.”

Benjen just pressed a kiss to her forehead “I’ll always do my best to come home to you and Robb.” he told her “But doing my duty might include awful and dangerous things sometimes.”

“I know.” she sighed “But...do come home, come home whole and safe and living.”

He hums an agreement into her hair. He turned sixteen years old just yesterday, almost two whole years older than the day he married her.

 

* * *

 

Ned has had a sept built for her and Ashara, though doubtless it was Ashara he was thinking of. It is small and clean and bright, with stained glass windows, and a seven sided altar at the front, that being the wall with the window depicting The Father. The back holds a two rows of pews. It is not built big enough to look empty when few are present, for here in the north it will never be filled.

Ned had told her quite earnestly when he was planning for it’s construction that he didn’t want her or Ashara to feel that they couldn’t practice their faith to the fullest that was possible. Cat had almost forgotten how much she loved the solidness and presentness of the Seven. It was a great comfort to see the Father’s face when she prayed for the peace to last a long time, and to light a candle before the Mother when she prayed for Robb and Jon.

Ashara sends for a septon from the Riverlands, but for a septa from Dorne. Catelyn knows what that means, and fights between anger and admiration. The septon will be the one to teach and encourage all who enter the sept, but it is the septa who will instruct and discipline any daughters that they have. And all of those daughters will be raised in the Dornish tradition.

 

* * *

 

Sansa is born on the first true day of summer, after a fast moving spring. Jon and Robb take to her with a solemn sort of appraisal. They have been getting introduced to the concept of babies by the birth of the heir, five weeks earlier, red faced, and squalling Arthur Stark. His coloring was every inch a Dayne, though a dark haired one like his mother. His eyes were the deep Dayne blue-purple, and his skin a darker tan color than Jon or Robb had been at that little. He is a quiet sort, like Jon had been as a babe.

As seems to be the rule for Stark children, Sansa is the image of her mother, with hair that promises to shine even redder than Robb’s, and clear blue eyes, open and intelligent within minutes of her birth. She takes to her parents and her aunt and uncle with an easy open grace, smiling on all four of them, and agreeable to being cuddled and kissed even just before or just after a nap when she is tired and groggy.

But it is just after her birth - babe still wrapped in her first ever blanket, just cleaned of the blood and sweat that accompanied her birth - that Benjen makes his confession, cradling his infant daughter in his arms, and smoothing her soft downy hair with a single finger “I thought of joining the Watch once. I just wanted to escape these halls where all I could see was the mistakes I had made and the pain it had brought on so many people.”

Catelyn felt hurt piercing her deep within, the knowledge that he could have abandoned her and Robb and the life they had here at Winterfell. But she pushed that aside enough to ask him “What made you change your mind?”

He gazed at her, his grey eyes drinking in her every feature. Finally he answered “You. You told me that I wasn’t to blame. I didn’t believe it at the time. I’m still not sure I do. But I have a wife now. And a son and a daughter. I don’t want to throw all of that away.”

Catelyn leaned forward and kissed him lightly.

“And I never want to be without you.” she told him seriously. He nodded, studying Sansa’s tiny face again, as if trying to memorize every detail.


	8. Black Wings, Black Words

They are all out playing with the children when the news comes.

Sansa is particularly taken with her Uncle Ned. She stands in front of him on small sturdy legs and demands he tell her a story in speech that seemed far too clear for one her age. Catelyn knows that neither Jon or Robb spoke so clearly at two years old. Arthur seems a bit further along than they were, but perhaps that is because he has a rival who has already set herself ahead that he must catch up to.

Ned sets to recalling a story for Sansa, and Cat feels a deep pang of love for her goodbrother. He is so sweet with all of the children, so good and honorable. She doesn’t always know if her feelings for him are purely sisterly, but it only takes one look at her young husband to know that she will never give her heart to another while he lives. She doesn’t know how long it will be before she stops thinking of him as so young. He is twenty, and has been a man grown for quite awhile. The three years between them seem to be much less now, and he stopped growing taller and started growing a beard with Sansa’s birth. The man who shares her bed every night has grown quite a bit from the skinny youth who awaited her at the altar of her her fathers sept.

Speaking of that man...Catelyn watched as he was finally cajoled into play by the boys rioting at his elbow. He turned on them with crazed eyes, making all three shriek and run off. Benjen grinned back at her, and tossed Arthur over his shoulder, running after Robb and Jon. When they realized that he had captured their cousin, however, the two older boys turned to attack their pursuer themselves. Benjen laughed, swinging Arthur to the safety of his arms, before letting the boys over whelm him, collapsing on his back as the triumphant victors started pummeling him. Benjen laughed again, playfully, as he turned on them and playfully wrestled them to the ground in turn.

Cat wants to call out for them to be careful, but she knows that Benjen is careful. And her dear boy will not always be five years old, rosy cheeked and protected from the world’s evils.

Arthur is smaller than his older cousins, and not quite able to keep up with their horseplay. He tires more quickly, and so Ben slings him onto his shoulders and sets Jon and Robb to races, and challenges them to see who can find the largest pinecone, or jump the farthest, or a thousand little challenges that mean so much to little boys.

When they have at last been exhausted, Robb runs back to her, and Arthur to Ashara. Jon hangs back just a little, old enough to start realizing what “Aunt Catelyn and Aunt Ashara” really means, and knowing that he doesn’t belong to anyone in the ways that his cousins do. Catelyn feels a pang then, and holds out a hand to Jon. He runs forward, and leans against her other side, mirroring Robb. Benjen sits down by Robb, and pulls him up into his lap, leaning in to sit flush against Catelyn on the carpet brought out for them to lounge on. He rests a hand idly, on her stomach, not yet starting to swell again with their next babe. Ashara is swollen near completion, and Catelyn knows tongues have started to wag about the fruitfulness of House Stark, in the face of what seems to be the start of an endless flood of children. Let them she thinks to herself. There are worse things than having many beautiful children, and they have a long way to go before they approach Walder Frey’s large and ugly brood.

Sansa is sighing happily at the end of Ned’s tale when the Maester appears, looking small and worn, eyes tired as he approaches them.

“Lord Stark. A letter from Kingslanding just arrived, marked for haste, and not ten minutes before, there was one from the Riverlands.”

Cat feels panic clutch at her throat where she sits. An urgent letter from the Riverlands...Gods, what could it be?

Benjen had found her hand, before she even realized that she was searching for his. Ned glanced around at his family gathered around him, before grimly opening the seal on the letter from Kingslanding. Ashara reached out and pulled her niece back against herself, giving Sansa a kiss and rubbing the palms of her hands with her thumbs. Catelyn just leaned slightly forward, as Benjen did as well, waiting for the news.

Ned closed his eyes as soon as he got to the end of the letter from Kingslanding, and took a deep breath before opening the one from Riverrun as well. He skimmed through it briefly and sighed before putting both down.

“Robb, Jon, take the little ones and go find Old Nan.”

Jon nodded in breathless agreement, but Robb screwed up his brow, the oldest of the group, and made bold because of it. He seemed about to ask a question, but Benjen grasped his arm “Do as your uncle says.” Robb nodded then, deflating as he realized any protests would go unheard. The children filed past, in near silence, a stark contrast to their earlier spirited play.

And Catelyn sees the grim look in her goodbrother’s grey eyes, and wishes that she could follow the children to Old Nan and her deliciously scary stories, because at least she knew that those were made up, no matter how real they might seem. But she is not a child, she is a woman grown, and raised to do her duty. So she sits there, clutching her husband’s hand, as her eyes rest on Ned. His eyes find hers, and they lock for a second, and Catelyn feels all that lies unspoken between them, as real as Benjen’s fingers laced with her own, if only for that second of eye contact. Then he breaks away. “I will not spoil this place with this ill news.”

He offers Ashara his arm as she struggles back to her feet under the weight of the child she bears. Catelyn feels another pang, this time of sympathy for them both. Gods, this should be one of the happiest moments of their lives, and instead they have this faceless doom over them. It's just as awful for her and Benjen of course, but it is so plain looking at Ashara and Ned.

She felt eyes on her as she and Benjen found their feet as well, and glanced up to see Jon stopped and looking back over his shoulder, one hand holding Sansa’s. His eyes are the same solemn knowing grey of his mother and all of his uncles. They look so old in his young face, and Catelyn almost shivered in spite of herself. He caught her looking at him, and ducked his head bashfully, seemingly ashamed of having been caught disobeying commands. The boy worships Ned, so it’s not surprising if that is the case.

The trek into the solar was quiet and tense, and Catelyn felt her apprehension growing with each step they took. All she could think was that surely this letter would take her husband from her, and disrupt the family that they had formed again. She hadn’t had any reason to dislike having Ned and Ashara around once she knew them, but it would not be the same if Benjen and Ned were taken away from Winterfell, from her and the children and Ashara.

Ned glanced around at them all, and walked to the window of the solar, overlooking Winterfell. Catelyn sat down next to Ashara, clutching the Dornish woman’s hand within her own. Ashara squeezed back. Benjen followed his brother to the window and looked out over the land himself.

All was quiet, with the Maester hovering silently next to the desk, hands hidden inside his massive sleeves, looking even smaller and greyer than he did most days.

Ned was still silent, and  it was Ashara who finally called his name, her voice just as as strong and clear as it always was. “Ned.”

He broke away from his pacing and staring, and focused his eyes on his family. “Balon Greyjoy declared himself king. He is reaving up and down the western shore, and Robert is calling us to war.”

Catelyn closed her eyes and leaned against Ashara’s shoulder. It was all that she feared. Ned and Benjen would be gone, off to save the Kingdom, beside Robert Baratheon. What did kings ever do for anyone besides call families apart for war? She looked up and caught Benjen’s eyes. His grey Stark eyes, like his brother’s and his nephew’s. They weren’t scared, or comforting, but they let her know he was there.

Ashara rested her head against Cat’s own. She could feel the tightness in herself, mirrored in her goodsister. But they knew that no amount of pleading would change what had to be done, and would only make it harder for the men being called to leave. For a second she wondered if perhaps Benjen was too young to travel south for war, but his brother was two years younger when he went south to fight for Lyanna.

“Ironmen.” she heard herself saying numbly “My uncle says they do not fear drowning, so they fight in as much armor as they please when they are on a ship. And they take women captive to pleasure them on their ships.”

“Salt wives.” Luwin murmured.

All was quiet for a while. Ashara finally broke the silence “You will march south for him again?”

“You know that I must.”

“No. I know that you will chose to.”

Catelyn closed her eyes again. There was no avoiding an this argument, no matter what she said. Ashara would forever loath Robert for approving the murder of her best friend and her children, and would not be able to ever really forgive Ned for loving the man still.

“When will we leave?” Benjen asked Ned.

His brother turned to the Maester instead of answering “Maester Luwin. Will you send out letters, calling the banners?”

“Of course, my lord.”

“As soon as the banners arrive, we must be gone.” he nodded to his brother. Benjen nodded to his brother “I will tell the household guard that they must be ready for any orders. And let Hullen and Mikken know that we will require horses and steel when we leave.”

“Thank you, Benjen.” his brother nodded.

_Is he seeing his brother suddenly as a man, just as I do?_ Catelyn wondered _Does he wonder whether to be glad or to mourn? I know that I do._

“My Lady?” Benjen offered her his arm, and Catelyn rose, as if in a dream, and found herself speaking. What was she saying? She knew her duty, she had been a woman during war before. Was she finding the right words?. “Even during summer there is an awful chill on the sea this far north. You and the men will need clean and warm clothes. I shall see to that.”

That sounded right.


	9. A Departure

This time Lady Mormont did ride off to war along with her nephew, and brought her eldest daughter, a tall and graceful girl of sixteen. Lord Rickard Karstark was there as well, rumbling with readiness to fight, and deadly quiet Lord Bolton and his gentle son. Cat had seen most all of them since they came to pay homage to Ned, but never half so many of them together. Most of their men camped in the woods surrounding the keep Winterfell, and even so, the keep was overflowing.

Ashara appeared only when she had no other choice, able to beg off because of her advanced pregnancy. There were of course, whispers that she was angry with the lord, and against the war. Catelyn did what she could to subdue them, but one can only hold back the truth for so long. Ashara didn’t mind the fact that the household knew, which only made things worse. Cat had started to resent her goodsister when she realized what was going on, but in the face of all that would be and all that could be, she couldn’t be angry at the one person who would be left to her.

Ned had promised to be gone as soon as all of the banner men had arrived, and sure enough, as soon as the Umbers arrived, the Greatjon roaring his support of his lord, there was one last meal all together, one last night with Benjen, and one last sunrise watched together.

Ashara stood beside her in the farewell line, so swollen with child that she could scarcely stand, and trying not to lean too heavily upon her. Benjen had kissed Catelyn sweetly and thoroughly, as if he had not just done so in their bedroom, not ten minutes past. When he broke away, it was to kiss Sansa gently, and to cuff Robb and Jon playfully, upside the head, giving them warm embraces as well. He kissed Ashara’s hand softly, before giving Arthur the same treatment as the elder boys. But that was nothing that Cat didn’t expect of Benjen. He would be serious when it was required of him, but he tended much less toward solemnity and brooding than Ned.

Ned kissed her hand and murmured quietly “Lady Catelyn. Be well.”

“And you, my lord.” she answered him

Ned nodded “I know that I need not tell you, but I will protect your husband with my life.”

Catelyn felt her throat close up in panic. To lose Ned to keep Benjen. She could hardly bear the warring emotions inside herself, but only told him “I hope you do not forget yourself as well, my lord. For you would both be missed terribly.”

Eddard nodded, before saying his farewells to the children. As he turned towards Ashara, Benjen claimed her attention again, for another farewell. All she saw as they parted again, and Benjen swung onto his horse, was Ned smoothing a lock of Ashara’s hair behind her ear.

As the huge procession rode through the gates, Ashara leaned more and more heavily on Catelyn and the Maester, until she finally said “Get me back inside.”

Catelyn called over two of the remaining household guard, a mere skeleton of the men who usually watched their home. They helped Ashara inside, and up to the Lord’s rooms, and to the bed. Cat had called for the children to be taken to Nan, and was about to to follow after them herself, but Ashara caught her arm. “Cat...”

It only took one look at Ashara’s face to give up any fight not to stay with her. She dropped gently down on Ashara’s large feather bed and curled up so that her knees were inches away from the bottom of Ashara’s heavy stomach, just as Benjen had done when lying next to her, both times she had been expecting their child.

“I have been acting a child, haven’t I?”

Cat smiled a little “Yes a bit, actually.”

“I worry after him.” she fretted “And I know that if he dies for that man then I won’t ever have control over the hate that I feel. And I would infect Arthur with it. And the babe.”

She lay a hand on her stomach, and Catelyn added one of her own.

“Tell me of Starfall. What is it like?”

Ashara smiled, her face a little more full than usual because of the weight that the babe brought. “It’s beautiful. The castle is just where the Torentine river spills into the sea, and so we would play on the shore and in the water all day long. There were coves along the shore if you looked for them, and Arthur and I could run on the sand for days before we would want to stop. Sometimes Oberyn and Elia Martell would come to stay with us.”

She leaned in closer to Cat and murmured “Oberyn gave me my first kiss on those beaches. I was laughing at some jest he had made, and he leaned over and just kissed me. Arthur had run down before us, and he was not but ten paces ahead. I was only twelve, Obeyren couldn’t have been more than that himself.”

“I played at kissing in Riverrun’s godswood, with Peter Baelish and my sister Lysa. I couldn’t have been more than thirteen either.”

Ashara smiled at her, almost shyly, most uncharacteristic of Ashara “I bet that you’re a good kisser.”

Catelyn felt her brow furrow in spite of herself. Ashara was Dornish, she shouldn’t let the things she said get to her. She just shrugged “Well, no one has been rude enough to tell me that I’m not.”

Ashara laughed appreciatively, and took Catelyn’s other hand in her own. “Tell me more of Riverrun.”


	10. When the Men are Away...

It was less than a week after the banners rode off that Catelyn’s handmaid shook her shoulder lightly to wake her from her sleep.

“M’lady! Lady Stark is having her baby, and she wished you there.”  
  
Catelyn rolled from bed sleepily, but shook herself awake quickly as she heard. She slipped on the robe that the little maid held out for her, and found some shoes she could put on easily. “Of course. Could you have someone watch the nursery and make sure that if the commotion wakes any of the children, they’re kept out of the way until the delivery is done?”

The maid nodded, “Yes of course, m’lady.”

The babe that Ashara births at dawn is a girl, long faced with grey eyes, and dark hair, almost as pale as Jon has been as a babe.  
  
“Hello Arya.” her mother greets her quietly, soothing the screaming babe with smooth gentle strokes to her red face.

The door to the chamber creaks open, and Catelyn glances over at the door to see Robb peering in, and Jon behind him. She asks Ashara from the corner of her mouth “Do you want to see your nephews right now?”

Ashara glances over at the door and smiles “Come in, dear hearts.”

The boys clamor in quickly. “Gently, boys.” Catelyn cautions them. They climb on the bed more slowly, and stare down at the baby in Ashara’s arms.

“She’s so little.” Robb breathes quietly.

“You were that little once.” Catelyn tells him “I know, I was there.”

Ashara grins at her, though the boys don’t even seem to hear her. Robb reaches out a hand and touches the top of her head with a single finger, then retracts it.

Jon has been quiet all this time, but now he says, “She looks like me.” and Catelyn doesn’t even try to conceal the smile she shares with Ashara.

 

* * *

 

Just over two moons after the men left for war, Catelyn goes to bed one night and finds Ashara waiting for her, sitting cross legged on the bed.

“Ashara?”

The smaller woman reaches towards her, and she has crossed the room and grasped the offered hand before she realizes what she has done.

“I’m tired of feeling so alone in that big empty room.” She explained, turning Catelyn around and tugging loose the laces of her dress. Catelyn nodded and shrugged off the dress as it came loose, pulling her shift over her head. She pulled her nightgown back on over her head and lay down beside Ashara.

They lay there as they had the day that the men had left, talking of little things.

Slowly, the fire burned low, and Catelyn leaned over to blow out the candle. In the low glow of the last of the fire burning in the hearth, Ashara rested a hand on Catelyn’s stomach, which now unmistakably showed that she was expecting a babe. She cradled the side of her face with the other. Cat would have started, had this been any other person, on any other day, but it was Ashara and she missed the touch of those who knew her best, so she waited patiently. The darker woman leaned forward hesitantly, then all the way, and brushed Catelyn’s lips with her own. Cat leaned back against her lightly, deepening it. She felt different from Benjen, her face was even smoother than his had been on their marriage night, and her lips were fuller. She didn’t feel the same flare of desire that she had when she kissed Benjen lying in bed, but she didn’t want to tell Ashara no either. This was so sweet and she needed it, it couldn’t be the only time.

Ashara broke the kiss herself, and planted another on Catelyn’s forehead.

“You’ve missed that as much as I have.”

Cat smiled sadly, rubbing the side of Ashara’s face with a thumb as she nodded “I have.”

“Then we’ll have to remember that we have each other.”

Catelyn nodded again, and fit her head under Ashara’s chin, resting her face against her goodsister’s soft breast.

The third week that they shared Cat’s bed, they were found before dawn by a frantic Robb, pulling on Cat’s sleeve “Arthur had a bad dream and he wants Aunt Ashara! But she’s not in her room!”

Ashara got to her feet at once, pulling on her robe and following Robb from the room “Did he say what his dream was about?”

Catelyn could see that as soon as his cousin had been comforted, Robb would have plenty of questions about finding his mother and his aunt in the same bed, but for now he was on a mission. She wanted to be there for the explanation though, so she found her own robe and followed after Robb.

While Ashara comforted Arthur, Catelyn attempted to explain “Your Aunt and I usually have your father and your uncle to keep us company and stop us from getting scared, but right now we’re all alone. So we like to spend time together. Sometimes you and Jon will stay up together talking here in the nursery. It’s just like that for your Aunt Ashara and I.”

Cat didn’t dare look at Ashara. She knew that her good sister would be smirking, and later she would have to answer questions about whether she would approve if she found Jon and Robb kissing the way that she and Ashara did some nights. She certainly would not.

 

* * *

 

Cat is fond of Jon. He is a dear boy, more obedient and quiet than her own son, and tolerant of all of the youth and silliness of the younger set. She is still wary of him though, as much as she wishes she weren’t. Ashara has told her tales when they lay together at night, and they whispered back and forth. Tales of the Martells, and knights of the Kingsguard, and ladies of the court, but the tales that scared her the most were those of Rhaegar Targaryen. Already Jon seems similar to his sire, and Stark blood or not he is just as much a Targaryen.

Madness and Greatness...she recalled When a Targaryen is born, the gods toss a coin in the air and the whole world holds it’s breath to see how it lands. Jon’s sire and grandsire both certainly seemed to fall on the side of madness. Perhaps Rhaegar would have been great if he had lived. But even if he never goes mad, how does a bastard achieve greatness, if not through treachery and ambition?

Catelyn loves her nephew as she loves all her family, but she is very careful of him as well. Someone must be.

 

* * *

 

The two of them sat together to hear grievances while the men were away, Ashara at the high seat, and Catelyn by her side, as Ned and Benjen had ever sat, and as Benjen and she had sat, when it was just the two of them at Winterfell.  
  
Doubtless some of the men would have liked to complain, but they held their tongues and accepted the judgements that the women gave. Catelyn knew that in some places in the South there would have been protests, but in the North and in Dorne, women who cared to pursue it could have much power.

* * *

 

They watch the children, near obsessively. Catelyn sits with the older ones in the nursery while Ashara nurses Arya, and listens to Old Nan’s tales, shivering along with the children. Ashara sits in the Maester’s tower with Vayon Poole going over the accounts while the boys have their lessons, and Catelyn takes the children out to the godswood to pray to their fathers’ gods, despite how fearful the old trees make her. They both take all the children to the sept, and tell them about how the Warrior can grant great strength, and how prayers to the Mother will help bring peace. Ashara has told Jon that he was born in the south, so it is alright for him to pray to the Seven, even if he doesn’t know if his mother did. His mother did not Catelyn reflected to herself but his father might have, if Targaryens ever thought that they needed such reassurances.

They read every letter that they receive together, though they both skip over their husbands’ most intimate notes. It is reading the letters when Catelyn feels half girl, and both more scared and more reassured. Reassured because when she reads the words that Benjen pens, she knows that he is still safe. She is scared, because it is a reminder that the war is happening, that just because she and Ashara are safe here, and are able to make some kind of life, clinging to each other for comfort, doesn’t mean that those that she loves are safe and well.  
  
It is when the women are seated together by the high seat, some six months after the banners left, that the Maester comes down with the letter. The petitioners have all been ushered out, and it is just her and Ashara, seated together and talking. The midday meal will be served soon, and Catelyn feels too heavy to move from her seat more than once before the meal.  
  
“Lady Stark, Lady Catelyn, a letter.” the Maester holds it forward and Ashara opens it. Catelyn feels herself tense, as she awaits the news within.  
  
Ashara scans the page that she unfolded, and a smile crosses her face. “They are deciding on peace terms. They will be home before two moons turns.”  
  
Catelyn feels her own face split into a smile, and laughs with happiness.


	11. Home From War

The babe is born six days before the men return to Winterfell. She and Ben had discussed names in their earlier letters, and he had told her to give the child a name from her family. It’s a boy, so she names him after her uncle Bryndan. He is neither all Stark nor all Tully, for he has dark hair like his father, but his face and eyes are exactly like Edmure looked as a babe. Catelyn holds him against herself, and kisses him, before letting in all of the other children, who exclaim over him loudly and near as happy as they had been when they heard that Ned and Benjen were coming home.

Cat and Ashara are not so joyous when the party actually rides in through the gates. They had received news that Ned and Benjen would not be returning alone. Cat is nervous for another reason as well. Benjen hadn’t written any letters to her at all, since before the one they got telling of victory.

The boy looks small from where he sits, riding next to Jory Cassel. Cat feels pity welling up inside herself and forces it down. This boy may look small and scared now, but he will grow up to be an ironman, a raper and a reaver. At the very least, he will be an angry young man who inherits too much power too quickly, and that is perhaps the most dangerous thing of all. Ashara is angry because Ned will disrupt the family, and put it in danger, for the sake of Robert, once again, as if all of the times before were not enough.

She does not see Benjen at first, but then Ned jumps down off of his horse and Robb and Jon are swarming him in greeting, and it makes Catelyn smile. Arthur and Sansa hang back, more hesitant to approach this strange man they hardly recognize, but then he speaks, and it seems to come back to them who he is.

Jory has helped the ironborn boy from his horse, and Catelyn gets a proper look at him. He is dark haired, with ruddy skin and dark eyes. He isn’t an exceptionally handsome boy in the way that girls dream of, but there is something about his face that catches the eye.

“My lady, Lady Catelyn, this is Theon Greyjoy.”  
  
Ashara greeted her husband, not exactly coldly, but with much less warmth than she had talked about with Catelyn as they lay awake only two weeks past. For propriety's sake, Catelyn could hardly embrace her goodbrother when his own wife had barely brushed his cheek with a kiss, but she smiled on him when he kissed her hand in greeting.

As Ned straightened, she continued to look around for Benjen, until an old man dismounted before her and whispered hoarsely “Cat.”  
  
She started, and studied him, before realizing. Half his hair had turned grey, and his face was burned by the sun and the salt, and scraped roughly on one side and a horrible knotted scar traced from under the opposite eye, down his neck and vanished under his shirt.

“Gods” she murmured. Benjen.

She tried her best to school her face into something that looked less like shock. Ben just smiled sadly, and turned away, but she grasped his hand and pulled him closer.   
  
“You have another son, my lord.”

She felt him stiffen in her arms. _Gods, he has clearly been through hell._ She tried to find Ashara’s gaze, or Ned’s, so that she could excuse the two of them from the crowd, but they were absorbed in everything going on around them.

Benjen had no such compunctions.

“Excuse me my lady.” he muttered, breaking away from her, and fleeing to the godswood.

He just didn’t take her with him.

 

* * *

 

He didn’t come to dinner that night. Catelyn excused herself after the main courses had all been sent around, and the men started drinking and toasting. Ashara had sent all of the younger set up the the nursery around the same time, and then took Jon and Robb up to their room, and Theon to the one that had been set aside for him not long after.   
  
Benjen wasn’t in the godswood when she went to look for him there, nor was he in her room. She searched for him in his own room then, and found him there.

“Ben.”

He glanced up from where he had been looking out the window over the North. “Cat.”

“I have missed you, my lord.”

Ben shook his head, and looked back out the window, turning away from her “You missed the handsome young man who went away to war. You don’t want who I am now.”

“When I married you, I said forever. You did too. What you’ve seen, the way you’ve been hurt, it doesn’t change that I am your wife and I love you.”

“Do you?” he turned his scarred face back to her. She steadied herself, and didn’t flinch back from the gristly sight, but something in her eyes must have responded anyways, because he blinked hard and stared back out the window.

But she stared back at him and responded with a bravado she didn’t really feel “I’ve seen worse.”

Benjen laughed bitterly “Ned is finally the handsome one. He never wished it, I know, but there it is.”

Cat just stared at him “There is no call for you to act so hateful. Neither I nor your brother has done anything wrong.”

“I know” he confessed, turning back towards her “But I wished naively that I wouldn’t change in your eyes, and then I saw your face and...” he trailed off and shrugged, glancing absently back towards the window.

It would be useless to tell him that nothing had changed, because clearly a lot had changed for him, and telling him otherwise would be cruel to the height of absurdity. “Tell me. Tell me what it is you need.” she begged him.

“I don’t know.” Benjen told her, frustration obvious in his voice “I just don’t know!”

She sighed, and clutched his hand in her own. “Alright. Alright.”

He lay back on his bed, and Catelyn lay beside him, both fully clothed and holding hands between themselves.

She knew what he needed, but she couldn’t give it to him. He needed to know that he could be a whole man again. But only he could decide that.


	12. A Breaking of Vows

Robb wasn’t scared of his father’s new appearance. He traced each scar with vivid interest, asking stories about them. Benjen got tired of answering his questions about them, and after talking of war for too long, he got snappish and rude. Cat could tell that he tried not to and it frustrated him. So far, Robb hadn’t been dissuaded for long. The third time he posed these questions was almost a fortnight after they had returned.

“How did your hair turn grey so fast?” Robb asked him, patting it lightly.

Benjen took Robb’s hand away from his head. It looked small and perfect within Benjen’s own scarred and rough hand.

“It happens sometimes during war. It’s happened to other men before.”

“Why?” Robb asked, his question breathless and wondering.

“Seeing horrible things.” Ben’s tone was more clipped and brusque.

“What sorts of things?”

Benjen stared off into the distance. He stiffened slowly, and closed his eyes, curling tenser and tenser.

“Papa?” Robb asked him “What sorts of things?”

Ben still didn’t respond, and Cat stood to call Robb away and give him some space, but Robb asked again “Papa?” and placed a hand on Benjen’s shoulder. He started, and pushed his son away, gasping and staggered to his feet and away from the gathering of stools in the nursery.

Cat heard herself yell with shock, some nonsense word that didn’t mean anything but dismay, but all eyes were on Benjen, who closed his eyes and ran away.

“Mama?” Robb asked her quietly “What’s wrong with Papa?”

Cat closed her eyes tight against the flood of tears she felt building up. She opened her mouth and tried to answer her son, but nothing came out.

“Come with me Robb.” a quiet voice called out from her left side “Come along lad, we’ll have a talk. You too Jon.”

It was Ned.

Catelyn felt a flush of relief. Ned was always there for her and her family. Gods, she loved him. She knew that Ashara was still angry at him for wreaking such havoc on their family for Robert’s sake. She was coming around, but Catelyn found herself wondering how it was taking her so long. If Benjen was whole and well, and still showed her and the children affection, she could forgive him a great deal. No, that wasn’t fair to anyone, she knew. But she couldn’t stop the way she felt just by knowing it was wrong. Anymore than she could stop her feelings for Ned. Perhaps once upon a time, if she had cared to realize that she was developing these feelings. But she had been careless with her heart, and told herself that it was a sisterly love, even when she had known better. Now it was just part of her.

 

* * *

 

The nursery was almost silent that night, as Catelyn said her goodnights to the babies. Arya and Sansa were already asleep when she came in, carrying Brynden to lay him down for the night. He had been squirmy and refused to stop fussing and disturbing the other children the first time she came in to lie him down. Arthur had gotten out of bed and was staring through the window when she walked through the door. She raised an eyebrow and the three year old scowled, but padded back to bed. After settling Brynden in his crib, she crossed the room and kissed Arthur’s brow lightly.

“Go to sleep.” she whispered to him. He nodded, already sleepy inspite of his earlier reluctance.

She kissed each of the girls after that, and left the room.

She was only a few steps out of the room before she saw Ned coming up the hallway, holding Robb in one arm and Jon in the other, both fast asleep. She had to smile a little. It had to have been slow going, but Ned hadn’t asked any of the staff for help. Probably because he couldn’t bear the idea of showing favoritism, even in this smallest of things.

“Ned?”

He smiled at her, just the smallest bit “They fell asleep, and I couldn’t bring myself to wake them, after the talk that we had just had.”

She closed her eyes and nodded “I’ll help you put them to bed. Here, give me Robb.”

She accepted her son, warm and solid in his trusting slump against her body. He was getting too big to be carried, but he was still lanky and slight, not a heavy burden for her to bear.

She inhales the scent of his hair as she leads Ned down past the nursery to the room that the boys had claimed as their own when they decided they were too old to share with the little ones. Robb smells like the woods where he and Jon run wild (despite all her efforts to the contrary) and the pastries that they like to wrangle from the kitchens, and sweaty child, and after Ned carried him up all of the steps pressed right against him, he smells like Ned too.

She nearly blushes then, but knows from the lack of heat flooding her face that she’s managed to avoid it.

They settle the boys down on their soft beds, right across from each other. Cat steps back to examine the beautiful picture that they make in the dim light, Jon, pale and dark, curled up, facing towards his cousin, and Robb, ruddy faced from playing under the sun, all bright hair and sprawling limbs, one arm outstretched, pointing back at Jon. Ned lights the fire that had been laid in their hearth. He pulls the grate back across the fire and gets to his feet. Catelyn reaches out, unconsciously and links arms with him as she continues to take in the picture the boys make in their sleep.

Robb rolls over in his sleep and the spell on her is broken. She sighs and walks out of the boys’ room arm in arm with Ned. They have just past by the nursery, when she looks up at him with a half a smile on her face that freezes when she sees him. He is looking down on her with such tenderness that she can scarcely bear it.

“Cat.” his voice is hoarse, and it makes her ache with something that has gone unspoken all these years. Benjen never said her name in such a way. He hadn’t come to bed her at all since returning home. Any time she even saw him alone, she had been the one to seek her out.

She rocks up onto her toes and presses a kiss to his lips. They both break away breathless. She grins at him stupidly, and before she knows it, he has pressed her up against the wall. She stifles moans as he nips and kisses her face and neck and shoulders. This is how it feels to be wanted and loved. To know that the man facing you loves you for who you are and what matters to you, but that there is also more. A connection, a desire, lust brought about by tenderness and outgoing care.

She slides her hands under his shirt as his beard scratches the underside of her neck. She gasps and giggles - giggles as his hands fist in her skirts, and his grip ghosts against the underside of her bum.

They should move somewhere more private if they want to continue, but that would mean stopping and realizing what they are doing. She knows in some vague corner of her mind, that if they pause, they will come to their senses, and have to stop altogether.

So they don’t stop, and Ned crouches and does something beneath her skirt that she’ll remember till the day that she dies, and she’s standing there, clinging to the wall with limp fingers, feeling completely boneless and having trouble remembering her own name.

So she rasps out Ned’s name, hoarse and deeper than her voice usually is, and then Ashara comes around the corner.

Her face going pale is enough to sober Catelyn up very quickly. She opens her mouth to find words, but none come to her. Ashara shoulders past them “I intended to see the children before I retired. My lord, don’t come to my room tonight.”

Catelyn can’t, can’t turn towards Ned right now. She leaves, and goes to her own room without looking at anybody.


	13. Too Damn Northern

Ned won’t look at her after what happened. He won’t look at anybody. She can’t look at Ashara, knowing that she knows, and Benjen has clearly figured out that something is wrong. The week passes by in agonizing slowness.

On day four it becomes obvious that Benjen has sought out Ashara, for he stops looking around expecting someone to explain, and ignores her too.

The children know that something is wrong. Jon is far too perceptive for a child his age, as usual, and he knows that something has hurt his Uncle Benjen, further than the obvious, and that his Aunt Ashara is angry and upset again, when she was getting better. He told her this, in his usual far too serious tone, and she could feel tears welling up, so she hugged him so that he could not see her face and kept her voice clear enough to tell him that she’s glad that he can notice these things, and that he cares about his family so.

“Aunt Catelyn? Can you tell me about my father some time? I know that you knew him, and whenever I ask Uncle Ned or Uncle Benjen, they get too sad.”

Catelyn clutched him closer against her and murmured “Of course Jon. Of course I can.”

“Not now I know, but...soon?”

“Yes.” she agrees “Soon.”

Gods. Ned must tell him about Lyanna before he is a man grown. He has known nothing but love from them, but he has to know as soon as he is old enough to understand why they had kept the secret. He is too solemn and pensive by half, and he will hate them for a while if this is kept secret too long. Maybe he will hate them for a long time.

She can feel herself itching to scream as the days pass by so slowly. Ned spends all his time with Maester Luwin, speaking too quietly for anyone else’s ears to catch, and Benjen goes on long rides alone, and spends hours in the godswood alone, and hacks straw dummies to pieces alone. She doesn’t know where Ashara goes when she’s not in her room, but walking past the room she has heard both tears and cursing.

She herself wants anything but this distance. Let there be shouting, hatred, tears, anything but keeping an outward calm and continuing in their lives as if nothing had passed. They are all too proud, too set in their ways, too worried for the children, too damn noble born, and far too northern to disrupt their icy facades, and it makes her sick. Damn them all.

At the end of the week, Ned gathers all four of them in his solar. The summons had come from household servants. None of them could quite look at each other.

“There is an abandoned holdfast on Stoney Shore.” Ned begins, awkwardly “The people around there have no one ruling over them and giving them protection, and during the rebellion they were much affected by reavings.”

No one says anything to this, though they all listen closely.

“The people there need a lord, and Benjen has nothing to pass on to Robb besides his name.”

Cat feels a panic rising in her stomach as she realizes what Ned is suggesting.

Benjen nods. She wants to scream at him, that distance won’t make things better, that he still won’t look at her, won’t open up to her.

She looks at Ashara then, half expecting to see a look of smugness on her goodsister’s face. But that was unkind of her. Ashara always cared for her, and probably understood her better than anyone else. She doesn’t look as distraught as Cat knows she must, but there is still shock, still upset.

Cat remembers how scared she had been to leave Riverrun for Winterfell, and knows that this will be so much worse, having to worry for her children and her husband, and not just how she will fit in this new place.

But then she turns to Benjen, and he’s looking at her for once, and she sees the hurt, and the fear and the anger, but under that, there is a look of relief, and hope, hope that this might be the fresh start that they need.

So she swallows her own misgivings. If Benjen thinks that it will give them a new chance, she will not disabuse him of the idea. Perhaps it will. She still misses the way that they had felt during the rebellion when they were the Starks in Winterfell. It may be a good thing for them. It’s not like she has much of a choice. She has failed at her duty enough recently.

 

* * *

 

It takes nearly two months for the old holdfast to be repaired enough for them to live in. She spends much of the time with the children. Ashara joins them fairly often, and their conversations are civil, if infrequent and stilted. Sansa is starting to have lessons with the Maester. Jon turns six, though only she and a few others know it. They celebrate Jon’s birthday the week before Robb’s, so he thinks himself six already, and no one has questioned it yet.

Theon has a birthday as well, though he doesn’t tell anybody. They only find out because his sister sends a letter, from Highgarden where she is kept as a ward. Theon gets on well enough with Robb, but mistakes Jon’s quiet solemnity for coldness and dislike, which soon enough turns it to coldness and dislike. So Jon comes up the nursery often after he has finished his lessons, and plays with Arthur and Sansa, as gentle and attentive to them as any older sibling can be.

Of course, it is in this most awkward and inconvenient of times that Lysa and Jon Arryn come to visit.

Lysa was always both angry and exalted about the way that their marriages turned out. She was the one who had been guaranteed a place as a lady of a great house, when Catelyn had only had a chance to be one, should Ned die without an heir. On the other hand, to fifteen year old Lysa, fourteen year old Benjen looked a better match than old grey Jon Arryn.

Lysa’s figure had grown a bit from the slender girl she had been, because of all of her miscarriages and still-births, but she was still a beautiful woman. But her face had grown twisted and bitter, and she held herself stiffly.

Jon Arryn, of course, was the soul of courtesy, asking after the children, and smiling kindly when introduced to each of them. He grinned over his namesake, and was even kind to the Greyjoy boy.

They brought Uncle Brynden with them of course, and he smiled over his own namesake “Look at this one. All Tully, except for that dark hair. A true Blackfish then.”

Catelyn had laughed “I hadn’t thought of that.”

Robb is a bit in awe of his uncle, because of all of the stories he has heard of his tactical ability and strength in battle, though Catelyn very much doubts that a boy of six understands much of a conversation of tactics. He has clearly passed the awe on to Arthur, for the boy greets him, wide eyed, as “Uncle Blackfish!”

Jon pulls him back by his shirt and mutters “He’s not our uncle. Just Robb and Sansa and Brynden.”

Arthur looks horrified at the idea “But we always share. My lordfather is your uncle, and Robb’s uncle. And Robb’s lordfather is your uncle and my uncle. And your father was our Uncle Brandon”

Brynden just laughs “Uncle Blackfish to the heir of Winterfell is far from the worst thing I’ve been called, Jon Snow.”

And there it is, even from Uncle Brynden, that faint hint of derision. And it makes Catelyn upset. Not angry, for she understands the wariness that people have of bastards. History has given too many reasons to not fear smart boys who will likely never get anywhere in life on honest terms. But this is Jon, her moody, quiet nephew, still smaller than Robb, who feels alone already, who learned what it means to be a bastard as Robb learned the history of House Stark. She could never say anything against her uncle though, so she just reaches forward and cards her hand through Jon’s thick curls. Brandon’s hair was straight she reflects, but Benjen said Lyanna had curls, like their father.

Benjen sits beside her at meals. They are both trying, she knows, and sometimes her eyes will find his at the same moment his are searching for her, and they are able to almost smile.

Lysa smirks when she sees him now, and Catelyn can see her thoughts in her eyes. That her husband may be old, but at least he isn’t mutilated, and old before his time, destined to linger on ugly and unfortunate. And Cat can see that Lysa sees the rift between them and pokes at it. If it weren’t for Jon’s quiet presence, and her uncle’s irreverent glances and comments, Cat knows that she and Ashara would both have forgotten their differences along with their courtesies, and ripped her sister up one side and down the other.

One day, Lysa turns to discussion of how a child is forced to pay for the sins of their fathers, even calling the Seven into her quest to step on as many toes as possible.

“Children must be what their parents were before them, unless they are blest by the gods for their goodness.” Lysa nodded, glancing around at Jon and Robb, Arthur and Sansa, then at Theon “The son of a common criminal, a raper and thief will never have the chance to rise above that.”

She could see the boy biting his lip, but Lysa moved her gaze on “A bastard will never do more than bring more into the world.”

Catelyn closed her eyes. Gods, could Lysa really be that bitter? Jon was six, and Theon ten. What triumph did she think that she could gain by telling little boys that their fathers were horrible, and that they shouldn’t have been born?

She should have held her tongue. She knows that, everyone around her knows it. Instead she put down her goblet, rather harder than necessary, and said, sharply.

“I wonder what becomes of the sons of those who gossip and are cruel to children.”

Gods. If there was ever a time to guard your tongue... Her sister wasn’t as proud as Cersei Lannister, but she was still higher elevated than herself. And how did it look to come to the defense of your late goodbrother’s bastard? Especially when you had been engaged to said goodbrother when he supposedly fathered the child.

Robb was looking from her to her sister with wide eyes, and Jon smiled at her gratefully. Theon had slumped in his seat, and from the look of him was trying not to laugh. Ned and Ashara were also smothering smiles as best they could.

She could feel the light touch of Benjen’s hand against hers, and when she glanced at him, he was nodding solemnly “A good question indeed. A pity that there is no such child so that we can answer it.”

She felt her own eyes fly wide open, and Gods. Between the two of them, they would both be hung someday.

Lysa’s eyes flew wide “If you’ll excuse me, I’m not feeling quite myself. I beg the chance to retire to my rooms, my lord.”

“Of course, Lady Arryn.” Ned grants, looking at Lord Jon, apologetically. But Jon just looks tired, and Lysa leaves.

As soon as she is gone, Ashara snorts aloud. Ned gives her a disapproving look, but she just waves him off “Don’t be such a septon Ned. Gods, I will miss you both.”

And Catelyn knows it’s a sort of peace offering. Not an outright forgiveness, but it is there. So she smiles on her good sister “And I you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I am anticipating some backlash over how this turned out, the easy resolution, but this story is building up to the events of canon eventually, so I do want things to keep rolling, not come to stagnate of fighting and angsting. Thanks so much to all my readers!


	14. Another Hard Tale

She of course told the children about leaving for Stoney Shore, but Theon is the only one old enough to grasp how quickly two months can fly when you are trying to hold onto every last second. When at last it is decided that they will leave a week from now, Robb realizes what it means. That he won’t see his cousin, his best friend, or his new friend Theon, except when he travels to Winterfell to stay there as a guest.

He sulks and rages by turns the first half of their last week. It is all Catelyn can do to look on the bright side, and know that things would be worse if Lysa were still here. Robb spends the second half, after Jon talks with him, inseparable from his cousin.

Sansa is all excitement, because she has heard that Stoneyshore is near a trading port, if a small one, so singers and other exciting people come through more often than they do through Winterfell.

Benjen tries to come to her at night, she knows it. She can hear him walking in back and forth in front of her door. One time he rapped half heartedly at her door, then walked away before she could open the door. More than once she has left her door open just a crack, and seen his silhouette watching her at night, but he realized that she was watching him too and left.

She knows that she has to understand him, if she can ever help him, so she makes herself search out Ned.

He is with the Maester in his solar when she finds him. She waits patiently for them to finish their discussion, gazing out the huge window while she does so. She knows why Benjen has such a fascination with staring through it, the ground directly below you seems to drop away, and look out over the eastern half of the North, the green woods and the snowy peaks stretching as far as the eye can see, until you come to the blue horizon, bluer than the skies ever look directly over head.

When the Maester excuses himself and leaves, Ned tries to go too.

“My lord. Please, there is something I must ask you.”

He stopped, and turned back.

“My lady. I know that my actions towards you were wrong, and I hold no one responsible but myself.”

Catelyn stared at him incredulously “I was there my lord. I kissed you first, and I could always have told you to stop. I am just as much to blame as you, if not more.”

“Never the less, you were upset because Benjen had been distant and absent, even when he was there. I should have known that and-

“And you were upset because your wife was angry with you. Does that excuse you, my lord?”

“No of course not.” he looked shocked “Nothing excuses-

“It is the same for women.” she told him “The same for me. But that is not what I came to ask you.”

She leaves the window and crosses the room. Her hands rest lightly on the back of a tall chair and she asks Ned “What happened to Benjen? I know that it was more than just war. Some men break under that kind of pressure, but not him.”

“Men are different at war. War is hell for everyone.”

“But you’re avoiding answering the question. What happened to him? He was fine before, he wrote me letters, and he sounded like himself. Tell me what it was.”

Ned pauses, and looks down, before looking back up at her “Not many will speak of this. But there were two separate assaults on Pyke. The first time we broke open the gates, but we had underestimated the might of the ironmen who remained, and they turned us back. The second time, we came in our full strenght and they did not stand a chance. But Benjen was caught on the other side of the gate, after we retreated from the first attack.”

Catelyn closed her eyes. She had thought that she wanted to know. But no...she had to know, no matter how it made her feel.

“So he saw things inside of Pyke that broke him so?”

“Saw things? Pyke is a holdfast. Not that much unlike any other. It wasn’t what he saw that broke him. It was the things he was forced to do to survive. He had to kill women and children, slaves. Old men who never raised a sword against him. Anyone who saw him and realized that he was a Northman.”

Catelyn closed her own eyes, and clutched at the tall backed chair she was holding onto. _Gods. Ben._ She knew now why he had been avoiding her. He was afraid of spilling his secret, as he had been when she first married him. And she had betrayed him, for his own brother when he was struggling with all that he had done, to return to her, as she had made him promise at Sansa’s birth.

She had already known there was no excuse for her actions, but this made her feel a hundred times worse. Ned couldn’t know of the promise she had made Benjen swear to. He knew of all the things that Benjen struggled with though. She wasn’t sure if that made him better or worse than her. But it didn’t really matter.

“Thank you, for that my lord. I needed to know.”

His own guilt must have been the only reason that he had so readily agreed to move on with Catelyn, to give them a new chance. He was so wracked with his own guilt that he couldn’t truly hold her responsible the way she deserved.

“Catelyn?”

Good. Not Cat. She could never be Cat to him again, it would make this a thousand times worse.

“My Lord?”

He looked like he was floundering, so she just bit her lip and nodded “I know.”

She murmured “By your leave” and left before he could say anything else.

 

* * *

 

Arthur cries bitterly when he realizes that Robb, his favorite playmate is leaving him, though he manages to compose himself for the formal farewell, with promises that they will visit often, and that he must come and see them as well. Sansa flings her arms around her pretty aunt and her quiet uncle and bids them farewell, before kissing all of her cousins farewell. She stands with Septa Lenore at the end, waiting patiently to be set up onto her horse. Ashara had sent the septa with her, and Catelyn couldn’t help but love her for it. Even as they leave, Ashara must know that her niece will learn to respect herself, and not tolerate being treated as if she were lesser than any man. It is a sign of the love she bears her family.

Catelyn herself says her goodbyes quietly and formally, though the usually reserved Jon surprises her with the forcefulness with which he wraps his arms around her.

“Aunt Catelyn.” he chokes out, and Catelyn realizes what has happened just as she hears him. She has become his favorite, and he has won her over as well. Outside of her own children, he is hers. She can feel his hot breath and tears against her middle, and she clutches him tighter, giving him the chance to compose himself. _Gods_. And after all of her reflection about staying wary and separate.

Robb is reserved as he says his goodbyes, as quiet as his Uncle Ned usually is. Catelyn is busy kissing Arya and Arthur as Ned says goodbye to Benjen, so she doesn’t see it happen. She remembers the last time she was standing at this gate for a farewell, and feels the pang of all that has changed since then strike her deep in the chest.


	15. Stony Shore

Their new castle is still not completely done being renovated when they arrive. Robb is interested in spite of himself, and spends the day running around exploring it, Sansa following after, not yet as steady on her feet as him at three years old. He finds the nursery, and his own room, easily distinguished by the delivery of his trunk, and after that, runs off to the surrounding fields and coves, Sansa shrieking after him that she didn’t want to be left behind. The septa trailed behind them, perfectly happy to let her charges run wild on this first day when nothing was in order anyway.

It was colder inside the hold than Winterfell had ever felt. It was the lack of hot springs, she supposed, and the salty sea breeze that continually blew over the bluffs and castle walls.

Catelyn’s own bedroom overlooked the rocky shore. The water wasn’t a rushy river like the castle where she had grown up, and it didn’t look like the warm sand shores that Ashara had described from her childhood. It was iron grey waves slapping the rocks below. Further down, a few hundred yards south there was a clearing where the sand could be reached with less struggle, but even so it was a pathetic little strip of land.

To the north, there was the small port town, just visible. It was nice that it wasn’t surrounding the castle itself, like larger port cities. Catelyn could just imagine the worry she would feel to have strangers around her children everyday as they ran wild, as they were wont to do.

A sound in her doorway alerted her, and she turned to see Benjen standing there. His eyes went to Brynden in her arms. He walked forward slowly, and studied his little face. “He looks like Robb. Like you.”

“Except for that hair.” Catelyn smiled a little “Do you want to hold him?”

Benjen nodded, all his attention focused on Brynden. Catelyn had to smile at that, as she settled the babe in her husband’s arms, just as she had placed Robb and Sansa there when they were still little.

Sansa had been a little afraid of Benjen’s disfigured appearance, but one day as he stood near her, he picked up the end of her braid and brushed it across her nose. Sansa’s eyes opened in shock, her little face comically surprised, as she realized that it was her father beneath it all.

Brynden had no previous bias at all, one way or the other, and was too young to realize that his father looked different from other men whom he had seen. It seemed that Benjen was just realizing this now, to judge from the grin that spread across his face as he kissed the babe on the forehead.

“The nurse that Jory found is here.”

“The nurse that Jory bedded you mean.”

Benjen almost laughed. She almost joined him.

The room didn’t seem quite so cold.

 

* * *

 

They sat together during the day sometimes, but for the most part, being somewhere new wasn’t the instant fix that Benjen had hoped it would be. She knew that it disappointed him.

Robb and Sansa were settling down after having spent the last few days touring the castle. Sansa and her septa had settled into a more sedate pace after the first day. They walked through the castle, and down on the beach, Sansa clutching the petite woman’s hand and gesturing with the other as she asked questions. The septa had unwound her headscarf and let the wind blow her blonde hair around, and they made a pretty picture.

Robb had gotten wilder, if anything. He had a few sometimes companions in one of the stable boy’s younger brothers, but as the castle heir, there were few that would play fairly with him, most always let him win, and it frustrated him. Without Jon to temper his wilder flights of fancy, Robb grew rash and bold and lonesome. He seemed suddenly lost, cast adrift. If he had always been the only one his age, Cat thought, perhaps it wouldn’t have struck him so to be gone from the only home he had ever known, but to lose his home and his cousin in the same heartbeat was an awful burden on a young boy.

Benjen was having more success. The people of the little villages surrounding their hold were grateful to have protection, and showed him love and affection, and like always, Benjen would never push those aside. He gave them back care and hard work, in double and triple the loyalty they gave him.

Catelyn grew to love them all herself. They were cut from the same cloth as the Northerners who cared for them at Winterfell, and in the surrounding towns, brusque and rough, but caring and true.

It would serve. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long friends! Hope you liked this chapter!

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't the end, there is much more to come! Please send your thoughts!


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